No New Symbian and Meego Apps/Updates in Nokia Store After January 1, 2014

Nokia has announced developers of Symbian and Meego applications that it will no longer accept new entries and updates for existing software in the Nokia Store starting with January 1, 2014.

The handset vendor announced its new plans in an email sent to all developers out there, though it comes as a big surprise that updates won’t be allowed either. After all, as AllAboutSymbian notes, the company said before that it would offer support for Symbian until 2016, and the availability of app updates would have been a part of this commitment. Just as before, Nokia reiterated its focus on the Asha and Windows Phone platforms in the aforementioned message to the developer community. “With the growing business opportunities available on the Asha and Windows Phone platforms, we have been reviewing our developer content programs to see how we can maximize our support to you, our developers,” the company said. “As a result of this review, we have decided to focus our support and investment in new content toward Asha and Windows Phone. Over the next few months we will be transitioning our active developer support away from Symbian and MeeGo.”

The handset vendor also announced that all Symbian and MeeGo content currently available in Nokia Store would still be accessible to users moving forth, despite the fact that no new entries and updates will be allowed. Furthermore, developers with paid applications will continue to receive payouts for their content, the company also announced. “However, starting January 1, 2014, you will no longer be able to publish any new content or update existing content for Symbian and MeeGo,” Nokia said in the aforementioned email. At the same time, Nokia took the time to encourage developers to build applications for Asha and Windows Phone, so that they would continue to engage with the Nokia user base.

Both developers and users will be disappointed by Nokia’s decision, that’s for sure. However, as AllAboutSymbian notes, developers have already started to publish apps on their own sites, and many more are expected to do so, especially following the company’s announcement.

Nokia will accept no new Symbian and Meego apps after January 1, 2014
Image credits to Nokia

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